Already Home
by Masquerading as Quality
Summary: Regina finds it curious that after all the people she has lost, and all those who have died by her own hand, this should be the one who drives her mad. [Prompt response; eventual Dragon Queen; not precisely AU, but ignores most of canon after S2 or so.]
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** I wrote a little bit a few months ago as a response to a prompt on tumblr for a Dragon Queen reunion fic, then forgot about it, then reopened the document by accident and felt compelled to continue it. As such, unsure of what the length will be like. Definitely not as angsty as Moments, I promise! Your feedback would be much appreciated, and I hope you enjoy!

* * *

Regina stopped dead in the middle of the street at the sight of her. Impossible. Unthinkable. After all she'd been through, all the people she'd lost without the time even to mourn them, all the people who had died at her own hand—this was the one that should drive her mad?

Maleficent stopped, too, as though she had sensed Regina's eyes upon her. The apparition turned to look at Regina, tilted her head, and quirked one eyebrow.

"No," said Regina firmly. "No. You're dead. You're gone."

Maleficent's severe expression broke into one of near-gentle amusement. "Only in your dreams, darling."

Regina approached cautiously. She faintly realized she was trembling. "This isn't possible."

"Isn't it? Tell me, do you know absolutely everything about those dark curses you wield so freely?"

"Do you?" Regina sneered.

"A fair bit more than you, I imagine," Maleficent replied pleasantly. "I do study them, after all."

Regina realized for the first time that Maleficent hadn't precisely emerged from the library's catacombs unscathed. Her dress—that beautiful purple dress she favoured so, and the one she'd been wearing when the Curse had taken hold—was in ribbons, and did little to disguise the fearsome cuts and scrapes covering her body. Upon closer inspection, it looked as though Maleficent were made up of thousands or even millions of tiny pieces of herself.

"It's frightfully rude to stare," said Maleficent, her tone positively heavy with mockery.

Regina's eyes darted back up to Maleficent's face, and she struggled to say something without stammering. "I'll get you some proper clothes," she managed after a moment of awkward floundering. "Come with me. If you like."

Despite her ragged appearance, Maleficent exuded grace and unnerving calm. Whilst Regina rummaged through her closet for the things that were not custom-tailored to fit her slight build, Maleficent stalked deliberately about her bedroom, turning an investigative eye upon everything she saw. Regina felt as she handed Maleficent a dress and jacket (the thought of Maleficent in pajama pants was too ludicrous to entertain for very long) that she was back in the Enchanted Forest, a young and frightened queen under the piercing gaze of the strange, cold fairy woman who was quickly proving herself to be the only person not actively trying to destroy her.

Regina wondered whether that still held true.

"Curious garments in this new world of yours," Maleficent remarked quietly. "Uninteresting decorations in your abode. It all lacks a bit in dramatic flair, really."

Maleficent didn't mean it as an insult, only a tactless observation, but Regina's brow furrowed subtly, nonetheless. It had taken her a time to adjust to a person who spoke so candidly with no intention to offend, and after so long without this curious means of communication, Regina had learned the ways of the vast majority of people: passive-aggressive and snide.

"I like my clothes. And my house," she replied simply. And she realized as she said it that she meant it. The dramatic flair of her queen's wardrobe and castle quarters had most often been a means of covering up the aching hollowness she felt in her heart. Better to be dazzling and overwhelming than weak and floundering.

"Fair enough."

One of the best things about Maleficent, Regina suddenly remembered with a strange jolt, was that Regina seldom felt the need to justify herself in Maleficent's presence. Her actions, certainly, from time to time, but never the minutiae which made her feel like her true, hidden self. Never her clothes or her house.

-8—

Watching Maleficent adjust to the modern world was in some ways more amusing than the others Regina had witnessed. With each new discovery, Maleficent became rigid and studious, eyes wide, motions quick and jerky. Though Regina knew every sign of anxiety that any person could exhibit, she had never in her life seen Maleficent look even the slightest bit nervous until she was escorted into the passenger seat of Regina's car.

The actual entrance was unremarkable—still that wide-eyed search for information—but when the engine roared to life and they began to back out of the driveway, Regina caught sight of Maleficent's hand upon the door handle. Her fingers were long and elegant, despite some residual cuts and scratches, and her knuckles were white.

Regina felt oddly giddy at the notion of catching Maleficent feeling uncertain, and she could not resist the opportunity to gloat. "Everything all right, dear?" she wondered lightly.

Maleficent glanced about, noted another car that passed them by, then settled her attention upon nothing in particular. "If it's all the same," she replied coolly, "I'd prefer to avoid a fiery explosion. I've had my fill of late."

Regina bit the inside of her mouth. "Does it occur to you that I, a lowly mortal, would also prefer to avoid a fiery explosion?"

Maleficent spared Regina a passing glance, peering down her nose as if observing an insect. "Well," she said as she turned her gaze back to the window, "you have from time to time played a bit fast and loose with your existence, Regina. You'll forgive me if I fail to keep up with whether you'd like to live or die today."

In the mayor's office, Maleficent was all angles and rapid movements again. She touched everything even moderately technologically advanced with her fingertips—the telephone, all the components of the computer, the lamp on the desk and the ones on the wall, and finally, she became somewhat fixated upon the smoke detector on the ceiling.

"Shall I lend you a ladder?" Regina asked her after she'd finished the page she was reading.

Maleficent awarded her no reaction. "I can infer the functions of your other appliances."

"That's a smoke detector," Regina said, then added, flatly, "It detects smoke."

This, unfortunately, did garner a reaction, though not at all what Regina had hoped for. Maleficent turned to her with a mischievous glint in her eyes. "In case of a fire?"

"Don't you dare."

-8—

It was only when they entered Granny's diner that Regina realized, not unlike a sudden and violent punch to the gut, that she might also have cause to feel nervous.

There sat Henry accompanied, collective thorn in her side that they were, by the entire Charming clan: Snow, Emma, and Prince Charming, himself. Emma and Henry saw her come in, which caused Snow to turn around, and then, after a moment's laboured pause, Charming. Emma and Henry had the good grace to wave hello, though whether Emma was attempting to befriend Regina or treating her as the scourge of the earth this particular week remained ever a mystery.

Regina returned neither the confused smiles nor the wave, and she pointedly avoided meeting the piercing gaze she could feel radiating from Maleficent as they took a seat as far away from the Happy Family as possible.

"Who's the newcomer?" Mrs. Lucas wondered as she passed by to bus the table next to them.

"Maleficent," the possessor of the name responded, though Mrs. Lucas was clearly asking Regina.

The old woman's expression flashed briefly in recognition, fear, and finally, the stubborn decision to hide her initial reactions. She nodded curtly and made to leave.

"I beg your pardon," said Maleficent, "but it is customary to offer one's own name when one has just learned the name of a stranger."

Mrs. Lucas turned around sharply, inhaled, hesitated, then said simply, "Lucas. But everyone calls me Granny." She turned again and disappeared (quickly, but not quite quickly enough to be conspicuous) into the back room.

"Granny's Diner. I see. Charming," Maleficent remarked. "Good to see you making friends," she continued wryly, and inclined her head in the direction of the Charming table.

Regina's lip curled, an old mannerism she'd mostly learned to control in this world.

"I take it the blonde is the prophesied Saviour. Who is the little boy?"

Regina must have heard a thousand things more painful than that question, yet it struck her heart with such a mighty blow, it could have doubled her over. _Not so little anymore, old friend_, she thought sadly. "My son," she replied simply.

Maleficent glanced in Henry's direction, then back to Regina. She was one of two people in this world and all those besides who knew Regina wasn't capable of conceiving a child of her own. (And if Regina had her way, Rumple wouldn't have ever needed to know such a thing.) The realization had been a joyous one at the time when it had come, for she was married to King Leopold and would sooner die than carry his child. Nevertheless, a small, quiet corner of her broken heart had mourned the loss of a future that had never been hers to keep.

As a child and into her mid-teens, she'd never wanted children. She feared she would become her mother, and she did not wish to put any child through the torment she experienced daily. But meeting Daniel had changed all of that. She'd seen in his eyes all the goodness she longed to see in her own. She'd seen hope for the goodness of the human race. And she'd known with such certainty that he would be an exceptionally good father that she felt perhaps it was also possible for her to be an exceptionally good mother.

After this occurred to her, Regina realized how very desperately she wanted to have children of her own someday. She'd pictured herself and Daniel raising at least two or three, perhaps even more. She'd imagined a thousand different faces; her eyes, his nose, his ears, her hair...

Then, one day, when she soaked her body in scalding hot water and attempted to scrub Leopold's touch from her skin, Regina dared to count the time she had been in the castle. At that time she was still a teenager and preferred not to dwell upon what she'd viewed as the inevitable certainty of procreation, but did one not generally become pregnant when taxed with marital duties for such a long time?

When she'd shared the news with Maleficent, she'd been nearly beside herself with elation. She'd wanted to celebrate, have a glass of wine. She'd actually grabbed Maleficent's hands and forced her into a dance. Then, later, after the wine had been consumed and another kind of dance had been enjoyed, she'd wept bitterly into one of Maleficent's pillows for a life she would never know.

"I expect my next question is obvious, Regina," said Maleficent, as gently as she ever said anything, and of course, she was painfully correct. Regina could hear it just as clearly as if she'd spoken it aloud.

_If he is your son, why is he sitting with them?_


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** In case it wasn't already clear, I'm ignoring basically all of canon.

* * *

Regina had torn her entire world apart to build this one, but she was certain that the process of offering Maleficent her couch to sleep on would forever linger in her memory as one of the most absurd things she'd ever attempted. She felt awkward and clumsy. She deposited the pillow and blankets upon the sofa without even looking at them, or at Maleficent, or at anything other than the floor.

"No guest room?" Maleficent asked her airily.

This caused Regina to look up abruptly. She felt that she might laugh or cry at any instant, and there was no way of telling which.

_"How lovely of you to come for a visit, Majesty."_

_"Thank you for inviting me. Where can I put my things?"_

_"Anywhere will do."_

_"Anywhere? Don't you have a guest room?"_

_A chuckle. "Of course not."_

And now, in the present, Regina quietly echoed Maleficent's words in a voice that seemed hollow and heavy all at once. "Wouldn't want to encourage guests."

Maleficent's smile was barely noticeable. To the casual observer it seemed laced with derision, but Regina had learned over the course of their friendship to tell a real smile from a cruel one.

Again it came to her attention the way Maleficent's skin didn't seem quite whole. She was like an impossible puzzle of infinitesimal shards, or like a human made of scales instead of skin. Regina dared a step closer, and her hand reached out without her notice or permission.

Maleficent's ice blue eyes flickered down to Regina's outstretched hand, and Regina froze. "What does it feel like?" she breathed.

Maleficent tilted her head. "Like I could shatter and fly away on the wind at any moment," she replied lightly. "Nothing out of the ordinary."

Regina retracted her hand and turned away, fully intending to depart to her own room.

"You never answered my question," said Maleficent.

"I didn't want to," Regina snapped. She stopped walking, but did not turn around. Her hands clenched into fists at her sides.

"Thank you for enlightening me."

"What do you want to hear?" Regina whirled around, suddenly enraged—perhaps because this had become her default response to feeling vulnerable. "He was sitting with them because he likes them better than me?"

"Is that true?" Maleficent wondered, her icy calm undisturbed as ever.

Regina averted her eyes, and words began to tumble from her lips without her permission. "They all live together in a tiny apartment. I can't imagine how there's room, and the thought of even living in the same building with those two lovesick idiots makes my skin crawl, but Emma is Henry's biological mother, and Snow is Emma's biological mother, and so Henry thinks they're his family. Nevermind that I raised him. Nevermind that I..." she trailed off, swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat, and turned her back on Maleficent once more.

She wasn't certain whether she felt Maleficent's presence behind her, or she just knew what Maleficent would do before she did it, but the sensation of hands upon Regina's shoulders did not surprise, or even irritate her. What was more surprising was the realization that she wanted the touch...that she'd wanted—even craved it all along. A shuddering sigh escaped her lips, and suddenly every nerve ending on her body was on edge. She couldn't move—she didn't know what would happen if she tried, if she did anything but remain perfectly still.

Maleficent's hands traveled over Regina's shoulders and down her arms, and Regina was faintly aware of the heat from Maleficent's body just a millimeter away from Regina's. It was infuriating, but still Regina resisted the overwhelming need to be touched.

How long had it been since anyone had so much as hugged her? Even her own son only ever reluctantly patted her back if she hugged him first. In all likelihood, the full force of another person against her—this particular person, no less— would cause her to unravel completely.

"Underappreciated as ever, I see," Maleficent murmured into Regina's ear.

Tears sprang to Regina's eyes, and she blinked them away furiously. "It isn't like that," she said firmly. It wasn't anything like the Enchanted Forest. She wasn't a victim here. She wasn't beholden to a controlling mother or invisible to a hapless father or sold to a possessive king. She had made this wretched place, and she made anything she pleased within it.

Maleficent's fingers were trailing down Regina's back now, and Regina was becoming aware of another unwelcome reaction to Maleficent's touch.

"Of course not," Maleficent agreed, almost sweetly. "The circumstances and the scenery change, Regina, but I find that the difficulties we face remain more or less the same. Loneliness...feigned apathy...the fragile projection of strength..."

A tiny gasp escaped from Regina's lips, and though Maleficent did not pause, did not acknowledge it, Regina knew she had noticed it. Her long fingers curled around Regina's waist, and with the painstaking slowness only an immortal creature could possess, Maleficent gradually closed the minute distance between them.

The instant their bodies made contact, Regina all but collapsed against Maleficent, and Maleficent wrapped her arms tightly around Regina's waist to steady her. Regina leaned her head back so that she might catch a glimpse of Maleficent's face, but where she had expected to see smugness or the same old stoicism, she saw softness.

Her eyes fluttered from Maleficent's icy blue eyes to her full, pink lips. From this close, it was easy to see that Maleficent was a shattered approximation of herself, and yet her arms felt sturdy around Regina's waist, and her lips and even her piercing eyes looked so inviting...

Cautiously, Regina raised her hand and lightly touched Maleficent's cheek. It tingled, as though Regina were touching a spectre, and Maleficent's eyelashes fluttered closed. Without those eyes boring into her soul, Regina gathered the courage to close what little distance remained between them, and pressed a hesitant kiss against Maleficent's lips.

Now Maleficent gasped, and she withdrew abruptly, eyes still closed, lips still parted. Regina turned around to face her, and cupped Maleficent's face in her hand. Maleficent opened her eyes, but her brow furrowed slightly.

_Are you all right?_ Regina wanted to ask, but Maleficent did not like to be vulnerable. Such a question on its own might be enough to turn her from soft and sweet to cold and enraged. Instead, she took a moment to appreciate how incredible it was that Maleficent stood here before her, looking at her in this way, after all that had passed between them.

She wrapped her arms around Maleficent's neck—perhaps a bit less gently than she had intended—and pulled her down into another kiss. This one was not hesitant or chaste, and this time the both of them seemed to cave into one another. By the time their tongues intertwined, they had fallen to their knees, and only when Regina broke the kiss to catch her breath did she realize she was crying.

Maleficent brushed her tears away with fingertips made of tiny fragments, and her touch against Regina's bare skin tingled like the touch of a ghost.

"Are you...?" the words escaped Regina's lips before she had time to think better of them. What was it she meant to say, exactly? _Are you really here? Are you dead? Are you still angry with me?_

Maleficent's tiny smirk surprised and unnerved Regina. "Don't worry, darling," said Maleficent with affected gentleness. "You aren't the first person who's tried to have me blown to pieces."

The unease that churned in Regina's stomach made her defensive, and she pushed Maleficent away and scrambled to her feet. "What do you want?" she demanded.

Maleficent stood, too, and though her movements were slow and her breathing a bit laboured, she retained every bit of the poise and grace she always emanated. "I had only hoped not to sleep on the sofa," she replied airily. "But it seems you're a fair bit more burdened by our past than you care to let on."

"Burdened!" Regina scoffed. "I am not burdened! You rise from the ashes like some satanic phoenix and I'm not supposed to ask you what you've got up your sleeve?"

Maleficent remained unphased as ever. "I'm not exactly familiar enough with my surroundings to have come up with anything particularly elaborate, Regina," she said. "In case you'd forgotten, I've been living as an animal in a basement for awhile now. Are you perhaps projecting? Should I worry that my old friend had an ulterior motive in offering me a place to stay?"

"Why are you always so calm?!" Regina half-shrieked, like a madwoman, and the effort of her outburst knocked the wind out of her. She staggered backward, panting and robbed of most of her fury. "I'm sorry," she breathed, painfully. "Is that what you want to hear? I'm sorry. For all of it."

Maleficent contemplated her for a moment, silently, but Regina could see a change in her eyes. "What I want to hear is honesty," she said quietly.

Regina thought of how miserable she'd been when she'd visited Maleficent's remains, how Rumpel had tricked her once again into giving up yet another person she loved, and all for nothing. "It's true," she said. "I was desperate and alone and I allowed Rumpelstiltskin to fool me for the thousandth time. I didn't have a friend to confide in. I thought I'd lost you already, so I—" she stopped herself and averted her eyes.

"I'm so sorry," she said again, but the crack in her voice betrayed her. She looked up at Maleficent again through bleary eyes. "I'm glad you're alive, whether or not you hate me."

Suddenly, with inhuman swiftness, Maleficent was looming over her, hands hovering not an inch away from her face, eyes heavy-lidded and lips parted tantalizingly. Regina couldn't breathe.

"I never hated you, Regina," Maleficent whispered.

It was difficult to say this time who kissed whom, or who pushed or pulled whom onto the sofa, or the exact order in which their clothes (which incidentally all belonged to Regina) landed upon the floor as they relocated to Regina's bedroom. The only thing that one could really say with any certainty was that Maleficent did not sleep on the sofa that night.


End file.
